


several ways to die trying

by aphrodite_mine



Category: Degrassi
Genre: Canon Character of Color, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-05
Updated: 2011-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-24 08:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/261196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aphrodite_mine/pseuds/aphrodite_mine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows the progression of the summer season. Forgotten moments, missed opportunities. Elaborations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	several ways to die trying

**Author's Note:**

> Contains references to several key spoilery events in Degrassi Season 11, Now or Never. Contains triggery references to gang violence, rape, eating disorders, alcoholism, abuse, homosexuality, and mental illness.

_Piece me together out of the things that you see_  
\-- Psapp, "Part Like Waves"

*

The thing Fiona can't seem to get down is negative space. And Charlie says it's hard to master, even after seven Drawing from Life classes, so Fiona doesn't feel bad. But she can't help looking at her sketch pads, at the way the thing she started out drawing just sits in the middle with all that white -- so lonely -- and Fiona can't help filling in a little more around it. Weather she's drawing Charlie's pointy shoulders, or a banana, she ends up with a canvas full of charcoal swipes and little curlicues and geometric shapes that could, someday, turn in to patterns for clothing designs.

She can't quite get it right _herself_ , either. Fiona knows that she has to grow up sometime, that she's fully prepared to take on the skies, the Caribbean on her own, bare her skin to the beaches... But she can't shake the feeling of all this negative space buzzing around her. Sure, she counts the furniture (clutter, she thinks, filling up the spaces), logs colors and shades, but she can't deny how easy it is to simply take Holly J's hand and feel it all disappear, to press her lips to Holly J's cheek, hear Charlie ask "So, you have a girlfriend?"

"In the truly platonic, non-lesbian sense," Fiona says, and tries again to push back at the white space around herself.

*

She still kisses him when he's got the gun in the waistband of his pants, cause, she still loves him. That doesn't change, she can't turn it off and on like a switch. And he saved her, didn't he? He shouted and he turned and then she could breathe and scramble for the brick and--

Bianca kisses him but she doesn't press her body close, doesn't snake her lips against his neck and whisper, doesn't slide her hand around his back. She doesn't want to feel it. Knowing it's there is enough. More than enough. Too much, almost.

She kisses him and wonders how it was simpler when it was just the two of them sneaking into his house after dark, when it was just lying to his mother about just what exactly she did or didn't do to his tranny brother who may or may not have thrilled her with just one look, when it was just smoking to numb the edges and Drew going too far, when it was just when it was just when it was just

She kisses him and feels the weight of a brick in her hand.

"I won't make you do anything you ain't done before."

That's the problem. She's done it all.

*

Jenna doesn't remember when things that aren't Tyson had meaning. Things like time and clean clothes and parties and homework. There are two parts of her now. The part that keeps Tyson alive -- because he needs her, and no one has ever _needed_ her like this, in such a complete way before -- and the part that desperately, completely, beyond a shadow of a doubt needs sleep. She dreams about sleep in the maybe-five-seconds she drifts off while giving Ty his bottle. She fantasizes about the feel of cool, clean sheets under her back while she puts together a sandwich and counts out post-natal vitamins, because not only is the baby reliant on her for everything, he still gets his nutrients from her body, and that's, well. More than a little daunting.

Her body.

Ugh.

Tyson is finally, finally napping and the mirror in the hallway is just... _there_ and maybe she falls asleep standing there with her shirt tugged up but the next thing she knows, Lisa has a cool hand on Jenna's shoulder, and she is starting, shoving herself back into place and blubbering some excuse about needing to use the pump. And Lisa lets her pretend that's what Jenna had planned all along, changing out of her work clothes while Jenna sets up on the couch with the machine under her shirt, the hum starting up and the pump feeling strange and cold on her breast but worth it for the way the pressure releases almost immediately.

She falls asleep again, this time dreaming of an ocean. Waves, crashing. Again, again.

The hand, again. "You need to switch, or you'll be sore." Lisa squeezes, just barely, her smile there like a beacon on the craggy shore of Jenna's dream. She wakes up. She turns off the machine, she'll finish later.

The apartment is quiet.

"You don't feel like you fit in your own skin." Lisa slides onto the couch next to her, holding out an extra mug of tea.

"I don't?" Jenna says, in a knee-jerk reaction to feeling so suddenly and completely exposed. "I mean. I _don't_. But." She bites at her lip, tugging at the chapped skin. Steam from the tea pools up around her face and Jenna closes her eyes, wondering how long they stayed that way when she opens them again.

"I remember what it's like to look at yourself in the mirror and not recognise what you see."

Jenna shakes her head, feels the tears well up despite herself. "I'm me. I know that." She doesn't understand why, when she sees the sad little smile on Lisa's face she starts crying in ernest, thinking of sleep, of sleep, of Tyson, and falls against Lisa's chest, turning her face against her bare neck, smelling K.C. and something like cinnamon, maybe, and the ocean, and she can't stop crying, even with Lisa's hand on her back rubbing circles and the mug of tea between them creating a pocket of heat.

*

(He has feelings. They're buried under layers and layers of -- is it something like rubber? Rubber, under his skin, maybe, surrounding his heart? That place that used to beat and reach up to strangle his own throat whenever Clare was around. Eli knows the feelings are still there, waiting to kill him again.

He used to have words for this. He used to have whole volumes.)

*

She finally spits it out on the second day of announcements. "Okay, so. Dialysis sucks. That doesn't mean my life is like some black pit of despair, Sav."

He immediately raises his hands in surrender, having learned from years of practice that even running on half-empty, a fight with Holly J is not something to undertake lightly. "Whoa, HJ. I didn't say it was."

Her shoulders drop. "No, I know that." She sighs. "It's just. Before? With, I don't know, with other stuff..." She trails off, but Sav watches her face. He doesn't look angry that she broke his heart, not any more. Maybe she should be sad, or upset, or jealous of whoever patched it back into place. "With other stuff there was always an end in sight."

*

A is the first and last letter of the name of the girl who ohmygod Owen totally fucked at that party. A is for Africa, which awesome (too awesome) Dr. Chris chose over her (definitely _not_ awesome her). A is definitely not for the grades Anya's been bringing home, A is not for accepted into TU.

A is for Average, A is for Awful, A is for Anya.

At least she knows the fucking alphabet. At least they used a condom. At least _someone_ likes her. At least someone looks her in the eye and says it's okay to want this, it's okay to set your expectations a little lower. At least someone touches her stomach, her side, her neck, her face, and says her name, says this isn't about self-esteem or about not getting what she wants.

He won't tell her what it is about. She wishes she knew.

*

She doesn't owe anyone anything, an explanation the least of these. She does it any way. That's what you do when you... care about someone, you care about them so you help them when they need help -- skip class to forget about the stress of a math test, a trip to the boiler room to loosen up before going home to face their bitch of a mom, a short skirt and tickets to a show, a drink, a condom in her bra -- and they help you. They help you because they care about you and maybe more than that, maybe when they look at you they see something more than just an eager mouth or hand or thighs beneath a short skirt.

She doesn't ask for any of it. Start from the beginning if you want, from her mother clinging to that old Catholicism and pushing a baby into her own dark and dingy world because Jesus would want her two. None of it matters, once it's happened. Bianca just does what's necessary, what feels good, what she _wants_ because no one else is going to do it for her.

She makes mistakes, and that's okay because people make mistakes all the time. She grows a thicker skin for each one she makes, she learns that words don't mean shit, she knows that she controls what happens to her.

But she doesn't. And then she doesn't know anything.

She screams awake from her dreams but tucks her skirt shorter on the drive to school.

He looks at her, his knees to his chest (it isn't her fault), and he looks at her, and she knows what he thinks she did. That he believed, maybe, like she did, that she could control it, that she could use what she wanted and keep the rest tucked away. That he looks at her and wonders what she did, what she said, to Anton. That he looks at her and sees a slut; nothing more than an eager mouth, a hand, thighs beneath a short skirt.

(And maybe, maybe... Anton... he.)

It isn't horrible with Vince. She thinks about Drew the whole time, smiles even when Vince tells her to, and bends in ways she hasn't in months. It feels good (she tells herself) knowing that this will all be over soon. That maybe Drew will look at her like he used to. That Vince's breath against her ear will pay whatever debt there is to be paid.

(And maybe she deserves this. Maybe she's a fool to hope for more than she came from. Maybe she asked for all of this.)

She puts the brick in Drew's hand and in exchange he strips her down, leaves her on the steps of Degrassi, naked. It hurts more than Anton shoving her against the wall, more than Vince calling up a friend, his mouth wet, "Got a girl here who owes us a few favors, I'd say." More than his smile when she doesn't put up a fight.

*

"I feel bad," says Holly J for maybe the first time in her life, ever.

"About Anya?" Fiona shrugs, sits down next to Holly J on the couch, handing her friend a glass of orange juice. "We really... well, maybe we were a little insensitive."

Okay, so maybe they had been little _mean_. But, really? _Owen_? Hates-Gay-People is practically his middle name, and hello, Fiona's got maybe the tiniest personal interest there. And maybe she _doesn't_ know Anya all that well -- she's Holly J's friend, really -- but this is screaming bad choice. The kind of bad choice that Fiona used to make (and is hoping to keep in the past-tense), confused and alone and afraid and, frankly, drunk.

Holly J shoots her a look. "You think?" She sighs. "I honestly don't know what's going on with her lately. I've been so busy with school council, and dialysis, and just. I feel like I could drop."

Fiona thinks, but doesn't say _You're here. Now._

Instead she puts her arm around Holly J's shoulder. "She'll forgive us. She'll wake up from whatever she's experimenting on with, ugh, Owen, and she'll forgive us. I'm really not sure I can forgive her for doing _that_ in my bed, however." She catches Holly J's eye, pushes through the laugh that threatens to escape, her mouth smashed into a thin, amused, line.

"You know, if you wouldn't take it the wrong way, I'd invite you to stay over while you, I don't know, fumigate."

Fiona laughs, "I have a girlfriend, Holly J," which isn't true, not in the slightest. And she would take it the wrong way, despite herself. She presses a quick kiss to Holly J's forehead. "I don't even have time to fantasize about you on the verge of exhaustion."

Holly J coughs. "Dialysis is sexy."

"And don't you forget it!"

*

It just isn't true. Clare knows for a fact that she isn't drama (or, if she is, she had no idea when it happened, how she got to this point), that she'd be a top pick for _any_ club at Degrassi, that the _Daily_ is frankly lucky to have her. Ask for 100, get 2000. That's Clare Edwards for you. Reliable, exuberant, talented. Boring.

Not. Drama.

(It's an unreasonably cruel assignment in the first place. _10 ways to get over a break-up_. She takes notes and types in to Google, and interviews Alli, but the only answer that keeps springing up in her mind is _Join a club_ and sometimes _Approach school work with renewed vigor: Your time no longer needs to be consumed with things that distract you from goals that can -- and will! -- affect your future_. Write what you know, Ms. Dawes told her, told them.)

She'll keep writing until it all falls into place.

*

At this very moment, Holly J is trying to figure out a non-gay way to tell Fiona to keep doing whatever she’s doing, that her fingers feel incredible, that this is the most relaxed she’s been in days. It shouldn’t be hard; Fiona’s behind her on the couch while Holly J is comfortable on the floor leaning against a bean bag chair (“It’s bohemian!” Fiona had defended the purchase) and nodding her head slightly as Fiona brushes, parts, braids, tucks. (“You have to do something with it for graduation, Holly J, here, let me–”) It is, all in all, a very non-gay way to spend the afternoon after dialysis, and yet Holly J can’t seem to find a non-gay way to describe it. They’re just sitting, in a friendly fashion, with Fiona occasionally making a quiet commentary to herself, “Mmm, no, not like that,” and Holly J breathing in and out in what could be described as wistful sighs.

She’s certain that the way Fiona’s hands feel on her scalp, making the smallest of deft movements, is no accident. She’s certain that Fiona occasionally pauses to inhale, reverently continuing her task. She’s not so certain that the way her body is reacting falls firmly in the not gay category. “Do you remember,” Fiona starts, pulling slightly to get Holly J’s attention. She doesn’t need to. “In New York.” She pauses, maybe waiting for a word or a nod in response but Holly J can’t think of a non-gay way to do that. “You locked me in a closet.” And she did and she would be horrified, but Fiona is laughing and Holly J thinks about metaphors that are far too obvious and definitely not not-gay.

“I did,” is all Holly J can think to say, and does so, after a minute. “You weren’t very happy to be in there, if I recall.” And I, she thinks, stole the show and your brother, and we both know how that ended up. “You weren’t happy with a lot last summer.” She shakes her head. “It wasn’t ever about Declan at all, was it?” This is dangerous territory, dangerous and very gay territory and they’ve both made a sort of silent agreement not to venture anywhere near it. Because venturing would mean secrets and revelations and the sort of thinking that leads to deft hands in other places. Holly J swallows. “I mean, you were jealous, but not of me.”

Fiona stops moving and Holly J thinks it’s a good thing she can’t see her face because she’s certain that the hesitant twinge in Fiona’s lips, that the way she’s (certainly) closing her eyes for just a moment, to collect herself, would mean that Holly J in turn might brush her thumb over those lips, over those eyelids. “Honestly, Holly J? I didn’t know what I was jealous of at the time.” Fiona’s hand slips down to rest coolly on Holly J’s neck. “I knew that you were…” she pauses, (certainly) shaking her head a little, “this amazing… person. And it was no wonder that Declan fell for you, but that meant that I got a little less of him every day you were around. And I didn’t understand, because I wanted to be around you too. And then, I guess I realized that I wasn’t going to get either of you, that I wasn’t ever going to be what you needed, and I just wanted to forget that I’d wanted you in the first place.” The words fall in Holly J’s hair like snowflakes, or leaves from a turning tree. They don’t talk about Declan. They don’t talk about New York.

Holly J turns a little and catches Fiona’s hand in hers. “You’re exactly what I need, Fiona,” she says, and she doesn’t even think about how not not-gay it sounds until afterward, when her heart is almost choking her and she presses a kiss to Fiona’s knuckles. And it’s alright that after that she turns back around and Fiona’s fingers slide back in to her hair. She thinks about graduation and Fiona watching from the audience and not next to her, hands intertwined, and she feels sick. But Fiona brushes her hair down and murmurs “Maybe just a little curl,” and her hand falls against Holly J’s cheek, and it’s better again. Better than she knows how to say, gay or not.

*

There are rules for a reason. If she gave every whining grade 10 who walked up to her a job, she'd be knee-deep in idiocy. Katie, very simply, doesn't have time for bull shit. And maybe she's underestimating the difficulty of following clearly laid-out directions, or maybe she's just not cut from the same mold as quaint special snowflakes like Clare Edwards. Regardless, her watery-eyed desperation stinks of time that Katie doesn't have and isn't willing to spend on someone who's just winding up for another catastrophe.

And thank God, really, that sometimes a teammate will knock her senseless on the pitch, that her ankle will twist the wrong way and a shooting pain will follow her for days, because Katie doesn't have time for irritation, doesn't have time to be distracted from putting out the best product day in and day out to coddle a girl who can't manage to count to 100 words. It's nice, sometimes, chasing down the ball, just to shout and make it. Perfect, like always.

*

(She hears him over the radio, "The Man Show" with Adam and Dave; Bianca laughs, a sharp barking sound; she sits up, her body sparking with electricity. She says something about lunch not sitting well and hides -- there's no other word for it -- in the bathroom.)

*

It really isn't difficult at all to know things about people. In fact, utilizing a few moments when people having conversations don't believe you are a) listening or b) interested in the conversation or c) someone worth talking to directly can result in near infinite knowledge, or at least the potential for near infinite knowledge via the knowledge of other persons and other conversations to listen to. The likelihood of gaining such knowledge is increased two-fold the more invisible you are, and the key to being invisible consists of a) not speaking unless the situation is dire and b) not adhering to social norms like fashion and Facerange (although Facerange is an essential tool for gathering information, the information must not be gathered _by you_ ) and c) being absolutely normal and boring and having nothing to offer unless the situation is a) dire or b) is the situation you have been waiting ages for and happens to present itself, lovingly, with joy, at your feet. Then, by all means, give yourself a nose injury.

*

It opens her up like nothing else has. She can see... _fucking_ everything. Anya always thought this place was a little dull, a little boring, with it's low lights and clientele, but now. Jesus. She never noticed, she never noticed, she never noticed.

The _blue_ s in here. Anya's swimming.

Owen shakes his head, but she doesn't need him, doesn't need anyone. It's Anya versus the world, right? If that's the way it's gotta be, then she'll dive in, and swim, and swim. It's okay. She wants this.

*

Bianca has a long-standing tradition of falling asleep during lunch, a brief nap punctuated by finding a secluded spot and refreshing her hair and make-up before not skipping class. This tradition tends to come and go when boyfriends or significant others or just boys in general are involved, as a trip to the Boiler Room is far more necessary than beauty sleep. And recently, though she has no boyfriend or significant other or boy in general, Bianca has found that she's not so sleepy in the middle of the day. (Later, during Math? Is a different story.)

She listens to his radio show while not eating the hardly-appetizing-anyway lunch she can't pay for, while pretending to be dreadfully busy with homework that she will never complete, while slumped against a wall with her eyes closed.

Bianca falls asleep in Math and wakes up sweating, his name slipping from her lips.

*

Working on the newspaper probably isn't the _worst_ thing Clare's ever done with her time, but being assigned to the play isn't exactly fun. She thinks, maybe, she's proved herself by now. Katie acknowledges her outside of the newspaper office. She's even smiled in Clare's general direction.

And Jake, well. He's so easy going about the whole thing, about Clare stressing over deadlines, about Clare stressing over spending time with Eli, who is obviously... not okay, about Clare stressing (but less and less these days) over their parents.

It's nice to be with someone easy. Course, that doesn't stop her from feeling like she should be working a little harder. She can always work a little harder.

*

Tyson is crying and Jenna is too.

She shouldn't have hit him, but that rush when she did it... It didn't fix anything. And haven't they both done things wrong (him, more) and haven't they both come into this unprepared (him, more). It's just that it _feels_ so much more like his fault that this is all crashing around them, that his heart hasn't been here with her, with Ty, the whole time.

Marisol...

Jenna's seen her small hands against K.C.'s chest, she's seen her dark eyes, her coy lips.

Jenna doesn't blame her. Didn't she do the same thing to K.C. when he was with Clare, wouldn't she do the same thing to someone else, if they came along.

Ty's crying again, and so is she. Ty has his nose.

She loves him, but she never wants to see him again.

*

It's the first time it ever occurs to her. She doesn't _have_ to keep making shitty choices, she doesn't have to listen to anyone else. She doesn't have to keep thinking about what a failure she is. She doesn't have to do coke anymore.

Anya looks up at Bianca from her place, slumped on the bathroom floor, looking awful (she knows) -- _like shit_ \-- and sees something like hope arcing across a television monitor. So what if she never goes anywhere in life.

It can't get any worse. She's already done the worst.

She touches Bianca's arm on her way out, leans close. "Thanks for the water. I owe you, okay?" Bianca smells like wildflowers.

Bianca shakes her head. "Look. There's... this guy. He'll ask you if you know where I am. Tell him I'm not here, and we're even."

It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't have to.

Anya tosses the empty bottle into the trash and feels the weight lifting off her stomach.

*

Regroup. Try again. Friendship isn't easy. Sometimes, it has to be forced by circumstance. And when in need of a friend, forcing circumstance is perfectly acceptable. Imogen likes Bianca. She's the kind of girl who would kiss Eli for hours and go out with someone else the very next night, not giving it a second thought. She's strong. Vibrant. (She thinks about Bianca sometimes, like a flash of color.)

In regards to the sexy lingerie, the jury is still out. Does it, in fact, cross a line? Imogen, being of the belief that friendship isn't easy, doesn't have the mileage necessary when trying to decide if the gift of lingerie -- let alone the wearing of said lingerie -- is normal.

Normal. Hah. As if.

*

Katie thinks she should probably be able to remember what it was like before. Pictures, of her as a child with a plate piled high with pizza, birthday cake. And she _knows_ she didn't purge after, that she even had a chubby phase, but she can't remember it.

She can't remember feeling easy.

It's worse, then, knowing how bad ( _good_ ) it can get, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror over the bathroom sink, a face she hasn't seen in days.

Soccer, tae-kwon-do, the _Daily_. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Grains, meat, fruit, veggies, excess, excess, excess. Slipping away during family game night to the only scale in the house to stare down numbers that kick at her stomach, but she knows someone will worry if she's gone too long.

If she could remember, she could replicate. After all, acting isn't so hard. And after you do it enough, the role takes over. Second nature. But this might be the one thing Katie doesn't know how to do.

She turns her back, but she can feel it in the dark. Ready to pounce.

*

The alcohol goes down easy. She has so much emptiness to fill.

Fiona knows she shouldn't feel this way, not when her best friend in the whole wide world is going through something _life changing_ , but maybe that's it, too, that Holly J is doing this so she can leave, off to her new life, off to reunite with Declan. That's what the rumors will say. And the rumors won't say anything about how much she loves Fiona, because when you love someone that much you don't leave.

It's true then.

The champagne is cool on Fiona's hot throat.

*

"So I guess this is happening?" Holly J asks, watching her friends while the nurse removes her IV. The blood always looks so strange, tubing its way in and out of her.

"Naturally," Fiona assures her, a warm hand on her back. "There's no way I'd do this without you. Not for all the... prom dresses in the world." She smiles, her cheeks dimpling. Chantay and Anya are smiling too, and Holly J sits back down for just a second, overcome. They're all leaving this -- well, not Fiona, not technically -- and this is the last time they'll have _this_ moment.

"And I can do this?" She can't quite believe it.

"We checked with your doctor, Holly J. You're all good," Anya answers this time, offering a hand for leverage.

"You guys are amazing," Holly J says, "in case you weren't already aware."

"Save the praise until you see the limo."

Fiona's hand at the small of her back feels like a warm promise. Like possibility, like a hundred sleepovers filled with zombie movies and the chickiest of flicks, like a thankful kiss, like a space on the right side of the bed.

It is the ending and beginning of infinite moments.

*

She tells Drew that it's the first time she's felt safe in months, imagines that it's that way for him, too. That they've both been walking with quick glances behind them, jumping at shadows.

Safety. It's a concept she isn't used to thinking about, let alone wanting, needing. After all, since she was little Bianca's never needed anyone to protect her from the harsh light of day. She was born there.

She tells Drew that it's the first time she's felt safe, and then he comes in, with his gun, and shatters it all. And it _should_ be shattered, shouldn't it? She doesn't deserve to feel safe, wanted. She deserves him, his gun.

A flash, a bang, a crash.

Shattered.

Only, it isn't. Somehow.

She says she's sorry for the first time in months, and he smiles, Adam smiles, takes her hand.

She says she's going to end all of this, and she does. He walks away in cuffs, and she sucks in a deeper breath than she knew she could.

Shoulders will heal, and she will too.


End file.
